The Internet (and the World) is Awash With Horrible Ideas

As Clint Eastwood has noted recently, “Don’t listen to anyone. Nobody knows diddly.” That includes this site. Don’t take any word I say for it, look for yourself: see, notice, observe; magic is all around us in tech form, but we don’t recognize it for what it is now, because our Hubris labeled it all “progress.”

On the one hand, there are the (credits to Unca Bob for the following phrase), the ‘Greek Alphabet Soup’ fellows: those who think that wolf-pack terms such as ‘Alpha’ and ‘beta’ have meaning beyond anything more than an oversimplified concept of the Male ideal. Not only are these idea silly, they are antithetic to the reality of what a truly decent man must engender in order to elevate himself beyond the childlike, which is a simple exhortation: love thy neighbor as thyself. A never-ending carousel of wanton sluts is no means by which a man-child graduates into manhood.

On the outset, ‘Game’ seems like something worthwhile to pursue. And, indeed, if the intent is to manipulate those around him for the benefit of his own imagined sexual prowess, then Game is a fine choice. Yet if the young man working within this ill-informed ideal stands back for a moment to take stock of himself and the notion of Game, he will soon see the path as one of ruination and despair, and rightly so, for lust and self-gratification are indeed strong foes.

The man-child who seeks adulthood should readily avoid the aspects of Game, and should focus himself more on ideals with real resonance: things that can truly alter his mindset from that of a child to a man, a leader, one who is measured not by how many sluts he’s bedded, but by how he treats those who might not measure up to his own status. While there is no question that a man should conduct himself always within a ‘frame,’ a mindset wherein he is confident in himself, and has no concerns about whether being a man is ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ the notion of gaming the system is one of co-dependence, not superiority.

On the other hand, there are the mad, mad, mad, mad feminists who see misogyny everywhere, whether they’re really looking for it or not. These poor souls get no rest, no sleep, as they are constantly seeking the tiniest thing in order that it might outrage them, thus their platform is born unto them anew.

A man has his legs spread on a subway train! Surely, this is ‘male privilege.’ These poor souls see horrible slights everywhere they look. Much like the aforementioned Greek Alphabet Soup brigade, the only viable response to these slights is to attack, tear down, and destroy.

I dare say that for both groups, existence on this planet must be little more than pure misery.

As the old phrase goes, “Different strokes for different folks.” If the above two groups choose willingly to conduct their lives this way, then so be it. In our modern nagging culture, what is desired is to be part of the Hivemind. As humans, we desire that which affords us the least resistance, thus patience is required as to dealing with the above mentioned groups. Perhaps both mean well, but the result is the same on either side: anger, bitterness, seeing a battle where no battle actually exists, and the cancer of feeling that one’s purpose is to right all wrongs. Being part of said Hivemind is often easier than choosing for ourselves.

But for those who do not desire such endless, pointless struggles, there are other paths.

There is no need, as I see it, to disengage entirely from Modernity. There are tools in this modernity that can be utilized in order to find less combative methods. But one of the keys to being engaged while remaining apart is to simply ignore the Hivemind. And this comes with a price. It often requires ditching the current social media apps, turning off our ‘black mirrors,’ and remembering that this 3+lbs. of gray matter twixt our human ears is capable of thought apart entirely from Google, Facebook, or Twitter. ditching the Hivemind requires a terrible thing: disconnecting in many ways from said Hivemind.

For the most part, it seems that Modernity wants to have its cake and eat it, too. Hundreds of op-eds wonder why this Modernity cannot get its collective act together while ignoring the obvious clues into this predicament: we, as humans, are not ‘evolving.’ We are the same errant creatures that have always been, and electron microscopes and gigantic telescopes do not mitigate this fact. Though our technology has improved in this century alone by tenfold, that, in and of itself, has little bearing on anything like ‘evolution.’ Tools are tools, and though we find more precise ones by the day, we still cannot grasp simple concepts about human behavior—concepts that we’ve been struggling with since time immemorial.

And so we continue on this World Wide Web, talking, writing op-eds, pontificating, trusting our faulty data, instead of looking at history, anecdotal evidence and, well, plain common sense. What is cannot be so to us now, for we believe our culture to be the Harbinger of Change when, in fact, we’ve done nothing but recreate old miseries with newer technologies. As Solomon once noted, “there is nothing new under the sun,” including our own ignorance of our past.